John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In July of this year I was contacted by a constituent of mine in Wicklow who resides in east Carlow about a water leak outside her home. This lady had reported the leak to Irish Water on 8 June. It was then referred to the county council, which subsequently referred it to Irish Water, which referred it back to the council, which then referred it to Irish Water again for it to be put on a list. Yesterday marked the 16th week since the leak was reported. Finally, Irish Water wrote to say that the leak has been investigated and that it now needs a road opening licence to deal with it. It only took Irish Water 16 weeks to investigate this one leak. This certainly was not the case when local authorities had the responsibility over our water services. A conservative estimate would show that two litres of water have been leaking every single minute, which equates to over 200,000 litres of water leaked, which would fill over five swimming pools. That is what was being lost over the course of those 16 weeks. Irish Water employs approximately 4,000 staff. Maybe it was not able to deal with this due to staff shortages, but I question that. Therefore, not only is the Government of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil standing over a utility that is wasting money with huge consultancy fees and the installation of water meters, but it is also responsible for wasting water, something that Irish Water was allegedly set up to save. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are coming together to prolong the tenure of a utility that, in Fianna Fáil's own words, "has been a complete failure" and "a quango that simply is not working".

Fianna Fáil has misled the electorate. It is for water charges then it is against them. It calls for their abolition then their suspension. It is opposed to them but now it is preparing to vote with the Government to oppose this motion. It is a complete farce. Fianna Fáil is a complete farce. The only thing that is clear in the Fianna Fáil water charges debacle is that it was dishonest with the electorate when seeking votes in the last election, a very cynical manoeuvre. We have only to read its election manifesto to see this. Instead of spending the millions of euro on setting up Irish Water along with the almost €100 million spent on consultancy fees, this money could and should have gone to investment in the betterment and improvement of our water infrastructure and water quality for people.

Water charges and Irish Water have been universally discredited and rejected by the electorate. It is time now to stop wasting water and money. It is time to abolish Irish Water and water charges. I call on Fianna Fáil Deputies to do the right thing and the honourable thing, if it understands the meaning of that word, to vote for this motion and to abolish the charges once and for all.

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